Puzzle Pieces
by Anonymous033
Summary: Sequel to 'Lack'. After Tony gets Ziva's permission to send her flowers, they make attempts to work on their relationship/non-relationship.
1. Messages

**Summary: Sequel to 'Lack'. After Tony gets Ziva's permission to send her flowers, they make attempts to work on their relationship/non-relationship.**

**Disclaimer: *Plucking petals* I own it, I own it not. I own it, I own it not. I own it...I own it not. :(**

**Spoilers: General NCIS and Tiva. This chapter contains Jeanne, especially pertaining to issues touched on in the prequel.**

**Okay...so for once, I'm writing a fic that has me totally confused. Haha! By that, I mean that I've no idea where the Tony and Ziva in my head intend to take this. I don't know how long this story will be or where it is going, so consider yourself warned!**

**Also: I split this into another fic because it's decidedly different from 'Lack'. While it has its fair share of angst, it involves a lot more touching and kissing and er, teenage-like insecurities. I don't know how to explain it; it just squicks me when I have to write, "Do you love me? Do you really love me?" Not that I wrote that, but you see my point.**

**If this A/N doesn't scare you, feel free to read ahead!**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-_Soph_**

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><p><strong>Messages<strong>

There is a Chinese saying; rivers and mountains change easily, but one's nature does not. Ziva thought about that as she prepared dinner – alone. A bitter smile touched her lips at the irony that for once she got an idiom (that wasn't even in a language she spoke) right, and Tony wasn't there to hear her. He wasn't there, because the idiom rang true. At the end of the day, they'd always found it easier to stick to their nature and be friends and work partners rather than anything else; and so they had spent yesterday being just that. Friends.

Not that she would ever complain. But sometimes she just _wished_.

She sighed into the depths of the pot on her stove. She didn't know what she was pinning such high hopes on. Him, coming up behind her to put his hands around her waist? Kissing her neck and whispering sweet nothings into her ear as she made dinner for them both? _Not going to happen._ He had gone home yesterday before night had fallen, and they hadn't spoken since.

And she had always been a glass-half-empty kind of person, so she prepared herself now for the indifferent look in his eyes that she would see tomorrow, which would tell her that in the span of a weekend he'd decided she wasn't the one he was looking for after all. She, in turn, would pretend that it didn't hurt, didn't kill her from the inside, didn't break her heart that he could be so _cruel _as to get her hopes up and then simply let them be washed away with the tide. She would be good at it. Pretending, that is. They were both good at it; they thrived on it. It defined them and their relationship.

The stove turned off, she reached into an overhead cabinet to grab a plate. The sudden ring of the doorbell almost caused her to drop the ceramic ware, and she plunked the plate ungraciously down onto the countertop and whirled towards the door before remembering that she _wasn't _supposed to have high hopes. It took the entire trip to the door to calm her emotions again.

A look through the peephole told her that it wasn't him, but the same look told her that she would be glad to open the door to the bouquet of flowers waiting for her. This she did, accepting the bouquet from the delivery boy with a gracious 'thanks' and waiting for him to leave before shutting the door and checking for a card.

She found one:

_Zi,_

_Kinda nervous. But yeah, here's the first of many._

_Tony x_

She didn't know whether she wanted to laugh over the message or smile over the fact that Tony had put an 'x' behind his name. Rereading the card, she went back into the kitchen to pick up her phone. She laid the flowers gently onto the counter beside her.

He answered on the second ring, and she thanked him without preamble. There was a pause before he said, his voice careful, "Do you like it?"

"I love it." She ran a finger over a delicate petal, and part of her wanted to laugh because she knew he would _kill _just to see her being so ridiculously sentimental.

He breathed out slowly and gave a barely heard chuckle. "Thought you were gonna tell me you'd trashed it."

She blinked. "Why would I do that?"

"'Cause you'd trashed it."

"No; I mean 'Why would I trash it?'"

"Oh. Well a chick I once dated did that. Trashed the flowers I gave her and then called to tell me she didn't like roses."

She felt a flash of anger run through her. "She is an idiot."

"Maybe I was, for giving her roses."

"No, Tony. She was the idiot, and I would never throw away any flowers you gave me."

There was another pause on the line, and he sounded like he was smiling when he answered. "I'm glad."

She smiled back, even though he couldn't see her. "I love the card too."

He chuckled. "Gladder."

"I thought you'd be."

"Y'know, this one's just because."

"What do you mean?"

"The flowers. I mean…well, I want to make up for stuff, so there'll be more flowers with…letters."

"Letters? I didn't realize you have anything to make up for."

"I do. Lots." Pause. "I gotta go, Zi. You'll get a delivery tomorrow morning. But…if you're gonna trash those don't tell me at work, okay? Tell me over the phone instead. Please."

"Tony, I am not going to trash them."

"Just please promise you'll tell me over the phone."

Something in her moved at his plea. "Of course," she relented, even as she made a promise to herself not to trash the flowers.

He gave a sigh of relief. "Thanks." Pause. "Bye, Zi."

"Goodnight, Tony." It occurred to her, as she hung up, that what she really wanted to hear was _love you, Zi_. But that didn't matter. She ran a finger over another one of the petals.

She was already feeling a little less lonely.

xoxo

The doorbell rang again the next morning as she stepped out of her shower, and she spared a brief moment to wonder how much he was paying the florist to deliver at such odd times.

She accepted the flowers and hunted for a card again, but found instead a letter. She opened it. It read:

_Dear Zi,_

_I don't know how to do this. So I'm going to cut to the chase._

_This one is for how I treated you when I was with Jeanne. I said I never really meant to hurt her, but I never really meant to hurt you either. You were so good to me. I've never thanked you for that. Thank you._

_You are my best friend, Ziva. Even if I've never told you that. It's the edge you have over Jeanne. As for everything else, you have those. They are what make me scared of saying what I need to say. But just so you know, you are my best friend and everything more._

_I'm really sorry for the way I treated you. If I could turn back the clock, I would. You deserve way better. I hope this bouquet makes up for it, but you can trash it if you want to. It's yours now._

_Tony x_

_P.S. Yes. I'm a little drunk, in case you're wondering. I mean every word though._

She smiled sadly as she folded the letter back up. He was right; the word 'Jeanne' did make her want to throw away the flowers a little bit. It was really the phrase 'best friend and everything more' that stuck in her mind, though. And for that alone she would've kept the flowers forever if she could, even if she hadn't made that promise to herself.

She placed the bouquet next to its companion in the kitchen and pocketed the letter, continuing to prepare for work.

There were some things that they were going to need to talk about.

xoxo

It was amusing, for a while, to see how he kept shooting her nervous looks while trying not to look at her at all. If Gibbs noticed, he didn't say anything; but McGee spent the morning frowning between Tony and herself. When she finally found that she and Tony were alone in the bullpen, she hissed his name and jerked her head towards the men's room; he blanched visibly as he got up to follow her.

She checked to make sure that the men's room was empty and then locked the door before turning to face him. He looked trapped halfway between running away and joking around to make everything better, so she absolved him of the burden of having to choose by going up on her toes to kiss him. He almost melted with relief against her as he drew her in and deepened the kiss.

"Sorry," he breathed out as they broke apart, "got carried away."

She laughed. "I don't regret it."

"No?"

"No." She studied him. "But I'm wondering how drunk you were when you wrote the letter."

He grimaced. "Why, did I write anything embarrassing?"

"Depends on what you mean by 'embarrassing'. But mainly I'm just wondering whether you realize how your words sound."

He tensed. "Did I say the wrong thing?" he asked in a tone that was two notes higher than it previously was.

She ran a soothing hand across his Italian-suited chest. "No. They were the right words. But only if you mean them, Tony."

"Never meant anything more in my life," he answered, his heart racing against her palm.

She quirked a corner of her lips. "So I _am _your best friend."

"And more. Please tell me I put 'and more' in there, Ziva. It's the most important part."

She looked away, because for some reason she felt oddly moved to tears. Closing her eyes, she leant up again to press another kiss to his lips. "'And everything more', actually."

"I mean that. I promise, Zi."

"I believe you." She smiled teasingly. "I guess that means I'm keeping the flowers."

"No trashing?"

"No."

He looked at her for a while, his expression unfathomable. And then he suddenly broke into a radiant smile and kissed her. He pulled back before she could go any further, though, and leant his forehead against hers. "Oh my god. I'm getting too used to this."

She smiled and patted his cheek softly. "So am I."

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><p><strong>AN: The Chinese saying referred to in this chapter is 江山易改，本性难移 jiāngshānyìgǎi běnxìngnányí. Literally translated, it says, "Rivers and mountains change easily (as in their course and geographical landscape), but one's nature is hard to change". It means, basically, that it's extremely hard to change who we are.**

**-_Soph_**


	2. Worth

**Spoilers: Major 6x25 "Aliyah" and 7x01 "Truth or Consequences"; general NCIS.**

**Here it is, chapter two! Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, and favourited chapter one :D This chapter is purposefully written to be a bit awkward, because Tony and Ziva are not sure where the whole thing is going yet. However, the ending took me by surprise, haha! I didn't expect the topic to change so abruptly.**

**Note: 10.32 PM is 2232 on the 24-hour clock.**

**To **_**SweetVenice**_**: I wanted to reply to your review, but it appears that you have turned the Private Messaging feature off, haha. To answer your query: Yes, that was their first kiss. Well Tony had kissed her on the cheek a lot before that, but not on the lips XD no background music or fireworks, but I suppose they were both happy enough :P Thanks for your reviews, btw!**

**Enjoy; please review!**

**-**_**Soph**_

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><p><strong>Worth<strong>

He was a man who got work done on time. Sure, he loved it better when there was no work to be done, but if there were he would get it done in a timely fashion because procrastination made things messier.

And that was why, at 10.32 PM the day after she had kissed him – or he had kissed her, depending on how one looked at it – in the men's room, he could be found seated at his dining table scratching his head with a ballpoint pen. A piece of paper (with a few crossed-out words, because he didn't know where to begin or end his letter) lay before him, its marred blankness a mockery to his inability to come up with a sentence other than _please kiss me again, Ziva._

He frowned at the tastelessness of the words in his head. God, he sounded like pimply teenager hyped up on puberty hormones.

He really did miss kissing her, though. They hadn't kissed today, and the side of him which still believed in American Dreams said that it didn't matter because there would always be tomorrow and the day after. The side of him which believed in Hell on Earth told him that a single misstep meant that he would never get to kiss her again, because he would lose her. Not that he _had _her in the strictest sense, since they didn't seem to be dating; but her emotions must count for something, right?

He growled with frustration. _That _was really what was bothering him – the understanding that, no matter how much she loved him right now, there was always the possibility he would lose her someday. He knew it was ridiculous; nothing was permanent and, as every aspiring motivational speaker would say, _carpe diem _was a good motto to live by. But he didn't know how to get rid of this debilitating fear in his heart.

The paper was scrunched up and flung across the room; he didn't particularly care where it landed. There was no one else in his apartment to see it, anyway. He flopped back into his chair and rubbed his face tiredly.

Tonight's letter was supposed to be about addressing the hardest topics. Near death, because he hadn't been able to keep her far away enough from it. Injury, from the slightest paper cut that he never kissed better to the heart-shattering shootouts and explosions she got herself into, which gave him just a _taste_ of what she must've gone through with her sister Tali. Bereavement; hers in particular because he had killed one of her boyfriends. Torture – hers in particular, too. _So many things he had to apologize for._

He wasn't complaining about the workload; pride used to be his deadly sin but it was no longer. He was strongly reminded of how little he was worth her, though.

His phone was put to his ear before he knew it, and it was only at the first ring that he realized it was probably a stupid idea to call her asking for comfort when he should be begging for forgiveness. He hung up and returned the phone to the table dejectedly.

Maybe he should just give up now. Chump like he was, he should've known he couldn't even last a week anyway.

He jumped when the phone abruptly rang. It was Ziva, calling back. He answered. "Hey."

"Tony. What's wrong?" her musical voice asked.

"What makes you think anything is wrong?"

"You sound glum. And you called but let the phone ring once. I don't know what I'm supposed to do when that happens."

He suppressed a choked laugh. His Ziva; she was so beautifully adorable sometimes. "Nothing. I just…kinda wanted to talk to you."

"Then why did you hang up before I could answer?"

"I don't know what I want to talk about."

"Tony?" There was a concerned lilt to her tone now.

"Yeah."

"Do you want me to go over?"

He hesitated, and suddenly found that he missed her _way more _than he had thought. "I wouldn't refuse your company."

"Okay. I will be right over."

"Thanks, Zi."

"Anytime."

She hung up and he retrieved the piece of paper to be thrown away.

xoxo

He'd already finished his first can of beer by the time she arrived, and he hurriedly pitched the can into the trash before he went to greet her. The first thing she did was to balance her hands on his shoulders and lean up to kiss his jaw; it sent odd tingles shooting through him.

She wrinkled her nose. "You've been drinking."

He bit back his guilt. Technically it was no secret to anyone that he drank; but he'd rather she didn't know _when _he drank. "Ninja senses?" he asked as he helped her out of her coat and hung it up in the closet.

"McGee says I'm part-bloodhound," she said matter-of-factly, shrugging.

"So you can smell the beer on me? I only had one can."

"I'm sensitive to certain smells. Alcohol is one of them." She wrapped her small hand around his. "Come on. No more alcohol; we're going to talk."

"I can't talk, Ziva."

She furrowed her brows at him. "What do you mean, you can't talk?"

"I mean I want to. But…I can't."

Her eyes widened as she got his meaning, and she tightened her grip around his hand. "Would you like me to get drunk with you?"

He laughed despite himself. "How will that help things?"

"Well, alcohol lowers inhibitions; makes some things easy to talk about. Yes?"

"Yeah. But I don't know if they'll be the right things. Kinda specific things I wanna talk to you about, Zi."

"I thought you didn't know what you want to talk about." He opened his mouth and then shut it again, at a loss for words. She rubbed her thumb across the back of his hand and steered him towards the living room. "I have all night. We can watch a movie. No pressure."

xoxo

If she'd said that movies lower inhibitions, she might've been right; because an hour into the movie she was sitting with her legs over his lap and her head on his shoulder, and he had his arm around her waist. They weren't _technically _cuddling, but it was closer than they'd ever gotten before. He kinda liked it – except that he knew she was still waiting for him to speak.

"It's not that I don't know what to talk about…" he began, not daring to look at her. "I just don't know how to say it."

He felt her eyes on him. "You can start at the beginning," she suggested gently.

He chuckled. "You make it sound like an interrogation."

She responded with a chuckle of her own. "That came out wrong. What do you want to talk about, then?"

"I'm just counting the number of times I wasn't there for you."

She frowned. "What do you mean? You are there for me when it matters."

"If I were….there wouldn't have been those three months."

She stilled, and he gave himself a mental headslap for bringing the topic up. _Idiot. _And then she slowly covered the hand that sat on her waist with hers, slipping her fingers in between his. "You are there for me when it matters," she answered, her voice warm. "You saved me. I owe you my life."

He dipped his head, the pain in his heart growing. She didn't _understand_. "I owe you mine. You've saved me way more times. All those bombs and stuff…I wouldn't have made it if you hadn't been there, Zi. But I took three months to find you. Helluva long time, and I didn't even know you were alive. I failed you."

"No, Tony, you didn't." She squeezed his hand. "If you had I wouldn't be here. Yes? I mean it would've been good if I hadn't been tortured, but that was my own doing, Tony. I went into a terrorist camp on my own; it was to be expected that I would be captured…in some ways, I _did _expect it."

His heart skipped a beat in a bad way. Something told him his worst nightmare was about to come true. "What do you mean, you did expect it?"

"I'm not stupid. I've been taught to assess the situation. I knew there were many against me. And that was why I went."

He gulped. "You went there to get tortured?"

"I went there to kill as many as I could before I got killed. I didn't expect them to spare me. It's one of the greatest miscalculations I've ever made."

He sat, frozen speechless, until a gasp from her snapped him out of his shock. He glanced down to see that his hand had tightened into a vice-like grip on her fingers; he was crushing her. Hurriedly letting go of her, he forced himself to meet her eyes. "Sorry."

She gave him a small smile and a tiny nod. "I scare you."

"No, you don't," he rasped out, his heart thumping. "But I…when you said you didn't ask for anyone to go there…I didn't know you meant you didn't want anyone to."

"I did want it, in a way. It's complicated. Tony, I was so glad to see you…I wanted to see you once again before I died. And McGee, and Gibbs, and Abby and Ducky. Even my neighbours. I never got to say goodbye; I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to thank _you _for having my back.

"But I didn't want you to be there. You weren't supposed to get captured for me, Tony. Neither was McGee. I mean how is that justified? I had a penance to pay but you did not. An action should be proportionate to its worth. I cost Michael his life. It is fair that I should replace it with my own. You had no such debt to pay. When I stayed back in Israel I thought that it was your debt I would be paying, but I realized in Somalia that it was not. You were only protecting me; and I, because of my foolishness and pride, had taken away not only Michael's life but your dignity. You shouldn't have had to shoot him. Just like you shouldn't have had to face Saleem…in my name. Your actions…" She blinked back tears. "Are far bigger than I am worth."

"Ziva…" he whispered hoarsely, hugging her close because he just couldn't bear the distance right now. "No. Oh my god, you're worth it. You're not a commodity that can be exchanged and you can't measure your worth like that because you are priceless. And you have to _promise_ right now that you won't do that again because I can't take it a second time. I can't, Zi."

She was silent for a long time, but the trembling of her lower lip betrayed her. Then she turned tear-filled eyes to him and gave him as firm a nod as she could. "I promise."

He pulled her completely into his lap, and she buried her face into the curve of his neck. She was crying; he could feel the dampness against his skin and he wondered, for the first time, whether _anyone _had ever told her just how irreplaceable she was.

He kissed the side of her face, holding back tears of his own. "You're the most precious thing in the world to me, Ziva."


	3. Awoken

**Spoilers: 6x25 "Aliyah", 7x01 "Truth or Consequences"; major season 7.**

**Okayyy...I know I told some of you that I'd update it tomorrow but I'm weird like that XD well, better sooner than later, right? I think. This chapter, btw, is why the fic is rated T. It's a mild T, but still.**

**Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the previous chapter! Please R&R this too :D**

**Enjoy!**

**-_Soph_**

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><p><strong>Awoken<strong>

She prided herself on being a strong woman. She was tough, skilled, independent; she could go the distance, if she had to. Like a finely honed weapon, she was built for speed, endurance, and accuracy. She believed, too, that like a finely honed weapon she was never meant to outlast her usefulness.

She was human; that was a fact even she couldn't miss out on. She had wishes, emotions, thoughts that she sometimes gave way to and indulged a little, because it kept her happy and it kept her going. She had a sole real purpose in surviving though; it was to make herself as useful as possible, because her father had taught her early on that the greatest gift man could give one another was the sustenance of life.

And that was why, while she had stood in the Director of Mossad's office being yelled at by the man who was no longer the father who had bought her popsicles as a child, she realized that she had betrayed not only Michael and her organization, but her father's teachings too. She had not killed Michael, but he had died in her living room by her NCIS partner's hand, and that meant she had failed her duty in keeping as much good alive as possible.

So she had gone to Somalia in Michael's stead, because sending Tony had never been an option. He was not Mossad or fully trained, in the first place; in the second, he would never have had to shoot Michael if she hadn't allowed the Israeli into her life. As she parted ways with Malachi Ben-Gidon, she had been aware of only one thing – she would not be returning, because she had ended her own usefulness the day Michael bled out beneath her terrified gaze.

To say that she had been horror-struck when a black bag was lifted off her head to reveal to her the one man whom she could _never _ask to suffer for her, would be an understatement. He wasn't supposed to be there; she wasn't supposed to be alive, so he wasn't supposed to be there with _whatever _notion of avenging her death that he held. There was no need for a remembrance of the person she was when she would simply have been doing her duty by dying.

And then Gibbs had planted a bullet hole into Saleem Ulman's skull, and Tony and McGee had helped her out of the room as if they actually expected her to want to live; and she had wondered if they simply considered it their duty to leave no man behind. This was a concept foreign to her. It was one thing to know the theory of the American version of comradeship; another thing altogether to learn that in practice it extended halfway across the world and beyond assumed death. That wasn't how things were done in Mossad, because after all one life lost in battle was better than many injured in the course of a potentially fruitless rescue mission. Mossad officers weren't really heartless or unemotional; they were just very good at cost-benefit analyses.

She had decided, somewhere in the middle of the nightmares she kept having to rouse herself out of, that she would no longer measure her life by the number of minutes it was left with. Gone was the urge to do as much as she could in as little time as she needed; she formed the idea that perhaps she could be valuable in a personal rather than quantitative way. NCIS was drastically different from Mossad in that it brought closure to the families of those who were already dead, instead of reassurance to those who were struggling to live; and even though less lives were saved that way, less were lost. She remembered the times when the resolution of a case had brought peace into a father's eyes and understanding into a sister's, and she knew that she wanted to experience that again.

So she had officially bid farewell to her old life and tried to integrate herself into her new one. Some things were easier done than others, though. The transition into becoming an NCIS agent and a citizen of the United States were child's play compared to how hard she knew she would have to work in order to prove herself to her teammates. It wasn't a matter of their trust or lack thereof; she simply needed to find where her usefulness lay again. They had gone to the metaphorical ends of the Earth for her, a place where they should never have been because that was _her _area of expertise, not theirs; and so she just needed to show herself worthy of their regard. It wasn't until yesterday that she realized, with a jolt which flipped her world upside-down, that such a thing as unconditional worth existed.

The same thought caused her eyes to fly open now, wide and panicked because she expected the man underneath her to suddenly disappear into thin air. Her hand flew to his body, anchoring him there – what if last night had been just a dream and he _hadn't _really said that she was the most precious thing in the world to him?

"Hey," he said in alarm, rubbing her back as he simultaneously tightened his hold on her. "Did you have a nightmare?"

She shifted her head and looked up at him then; through the moonlight she could tell that his hair was sticking up all over the place and that his eyes, carrying a hint of worry in them, were still glassy with sleep. She shook her head apologetically. "No. I just…thought of something. Go back to sleep, Tony, I won't wake you up again."

He gave her a wary glance, as if he thought _she _might suddenly disappear into thin air; sleep appeared to be a strong pull, however, because he settled for shifting her so that she remained burrowed comfortably (and firmly) within his embrace, and then closed his eyes again.

She smiled and pressed a kiss to his chest. She hadn't the least intention of going anywhere.

xoxo

She was next awoken by a pair of eyes on her, and she almost dug under her pillow for her gun before remembering that it was Tony, and that her head was currently nestled against him. Dropping her hand, she ran it up and down along his side instead, marvelling in the fact that he _still _had his arms around her.

He cleared his throat. "That tickles."

She laughed. "I didn't know you were ticklish."

"Okay well…it's not really 'ticklish' I'm aiming for." He cracked his neck and winced. "You're gonna have to help me up here, Zi."

She sat up, brushing her hair out of her face and extending her hands to help him. He accepted her assistance, and she could've sworn she heard three vertebras pop before he was properly upright. "Why are we not in the bedroom?"

His head spun around so quickly that his neck cracked again. "What?"

She rolled her eyes. "I mean 'why aren't we _asleep _in the bedroom', Tony. Or rather, 'why aren't _you _asleep in the bedroom'. Did I…fall asleep on you last night?"

"Oh. Um…yeah, you did. I hope you don't mind; I didn't wanna wake you up."

"You should have woken me up. Your back is all crackly now." She indicated for him to turn away, and then started kneading his back muscles. He groaned.

"I thought you might've gone home if I'd woken you up."

"Did you not want me to go home?"

"I wanted you to stay, actually," he mumbled as softly as possible. She stopped, surprised by his answer, until he turned around to look at her nervously.

"You wanted me to stay the night?"

"Well." He licked his lips. "Guess I probably should've asked you first-"

She cut him off by crawling into his lap and cupping his face in between her hands to kiss him. She had stayed the night before, as a friend; but simply being allowed to stay because she was too tired to drive home was different from being desired to stay _just because_, and she found that the latter meant a lot more to her. "Actually, you could just have taken me into your bedroom."

He chuckled against her lips. "Is your English particularly bad in the early mornings or are you trying to tell me that you wanna do naughty things with me?"

She winked. "Whichever makes you happier." Pressing one last kiss to his lips, she crawled off his lap. "How long do we have before work?"

"An hour and a half," he replied rather dazedly.

"Do you want breakfast?"

His face fell. "Breakfast would be good," he said reluctantly, and she suppressed a laugh as she turned to go to his kitchen.

xoxo

Breakfast turned out to be jam on toast, because her Italian stallion wasn't very good at keeping his kitchen well-stocked. She ended up having to bring him his breakfast, because he claimed – with a puppy-eyed expression – that his back ached a little too much for a hard kitchen chair. She didn't mind tremendously, though. It wasn't as if she'd gotten to pamper him before this.

When she'd made her own plate she settled down onto the floor with her back to the couch and her head resting against one of his legs, and he reached down to stroke the little bit of her hair that he could reach.

"Why are you sitting on the floor?"

She looked up and shrugged. "I do that sometimes. Will your back be good after work?"

"Why?"

"I was thinking…" She hesitated. "We could go out for dinner. If you want to."

"Do I get to pick where we're going?" he asked eagerly, and she laughed.

"Of course."

"Good. I have this restaurant in mind…you'll see, Ziva."

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he merely grinned back. Shaking her head, she bit into her toast. The night was going to be interesting.


	4. Pledge

**Last chapter! Yea, I didn't know it would be either. Please don't shoot me!**

**To make up for it, 50% of this chapter is made of fluff :D I'm not kidding. I don't know what happened to mind-Tony and mind-Ziva; they took over and attacked me with cotton candy. The beginning half is mostly angst, though. This chapter is not a dismissal of how much work their relationship is going to need, but rather a general agreement on where they want to be. **

**Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed this story thus far :D**

**Enjoy, and please review this too!**

**-_Soph_**

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><p><strong>Pledge<strong>

He had a secret. His secret was that he was terrified of going on a date with Ziva David. Not because it involved flowers and being a gentleman, since he was really good at those things; but because it involved taking her out of the Friend Zone and seeing her in a new light. A light which he preferred, admittedly, but it still went against the belief he had formed of their relationship over the years – that they were work partners, not romantic partners.

It would have been easy, when she first came to NCIS, to take her out on a date and establish a romantic relationship from there. It would have been easy even during the summer Gibbs went away and they had actually become close friends; because then they hadn't been through enough together for him not to be able to burn down all preconceptions and construct a new kind of relationship with her. But now, he couldn't rewind the tape; couldn't pretend that they hadn't been friends (and on occasion enemies) for _seven years_ before this. That scared him a little.

The funny thing was that he didn't actually _want _to rewind the tape. He wouldn't have traded the experiences he now had with her for the world; it was simply that the longer they had a supposedly platonic relationship, the further he had to look in order to see them as something else. Sometimes, it felt as though he had to look so far that the possibility of her being his _forever _was the tiniest bright star on the horizon.

They were now taking a walk after dinner, and his hand was _itchitchitching_ to hold hers; because when all was said and done he did want to see her as his romantic partner. Girlfriend, fiancée, wife; whatever. His heart skipped a beat at the idea. He really wouldn't mind being the one to put a ring on her finger. Committing to her had never been the problem – he'd already pledged his life to her, even if she didn't know it. It was not ever being certain of whether she could reciprocate that sealed his mouth and gave him nightmares.

He hesitantly hooked his little finger around hers, testing her reaction; she smiled up at him, surprised, and suddenly he found it easier to entwine all of his digits with hers. She gave a loud chuckle and squeezed his hand.

"What?" he asked, trying not to pout too much.

She grinned at him, and for a moment she looked _so beautiful _that he almost swooped down to kiss her with reckless abandonment. "I have been waiting all evening for you to do that."

His eyebrows shot sky-high and his heart skipped another few beats. "Did you get that line out of a romance novel?"

She smacked him with her free hand, and he had to tighten his grip as she tried to unlace her fingers from his. "I can be a romantic sometimes."

"I'm not complaining." He sobered, though, as her words gave him the courage he needed to say what he wanted to. He pulled her to a stop, and it occurred to him that the middle of a pedestrian walkway – albeit a relatively empty one – was probably an odd place to have such a conversation, but he needed to get everything out before he lost his guts. "Ziva, this is hard for me."

She frowned up at him, uncomprehending. "What is?"

"Us." He cleared his throat. "What we're doing."

Her face fell quicker than his heart did, and her fingers became lifeless in between his. "Are you saying you want to call it quits?"

"No!" he yelped, anxious to rectify his mistake. "That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying…I'm trying to say…I'm saying…is there anything to call quits?"

He couldn't blame her for looking mystified and hurt at the same time. "_What?_"

He made a face and drew her closer so that he could take up her other hand too. "Um, I've something to say to you. But…it's gonna take a while to get my words out so, can you please stay till I'm done?"

She shifted on her feet and gave him a cheerless smile. "I've nowhere else to go."

He nodded and took a deep breath. "Ziva, I want this to go further. I…kinda liked…whatever tonight was, you know, and I'd…really like a lot more. But… we're friends. If this isn't going anywhere, I'd like to stay friends. So I need to know how far you want this to go, because I don't want to start looking at you differently in a good way and then…have it all end because it was a casual thing for you. You aren't just a casual thing for me…you're never gonna be. So I'm talking 'serious' here. I need to know…how serious you want us to get. 'Cause…well…it's…I'd really like 'serious' with you."

He watched, horrified, as her eyes misted up and she shook her head. "You are an idiot."

"W-why?" His throat felt scratchy.

"Because I thought it must be pretty obvious that I want long-term with you."

His heart stopped, and he gaped at her with what he was sure was a dumbstruck expression on his face. He opened his mouth once, twice. "Really?" he finally managed to gasp out.

"Yes!" She looked close to stamping her foot or punching him in exasperation now. "_Idiot._"

And because he was a suicidal maniac who was in love with a little ninja, he leant down to kiss her with reckless abandonment after all. He rested his forehead against hers as they broke off; there was a smile behind her tears now. "Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight, sweetcheeks?

She laughed, a blush staining her cheeks. Her gorgeously brown eyes met his. "Does that mean we're doing this, Tony?"

"Yeah." He kissed her again. "Now I'm going to say something really sappy but you don't get to make any romance-novel jokes about it."

A smile curled around the edges of her lips. "Go ahead."

"_I'm in a relationship with Ziva David._"

The way her eyes shined told him that she liked it, but she still had to tease him. "That's sappy?"

"Hey, it is for me, Miss I-Can-Be-a-Romantic-Sometimes."

Her smile widened and she pressed her mouth to his. "We can work on your sappiness level…we have the chance to now."

"Ahhh well here's something sappier-" he cut off his sentence abruptly and picked her up, spinning her in a circle as she shrieked with laughter.

"What are you doing?" she huffed breathlessly as he put her back down on her feet, and he thought that her eyes had never sparkled more.

He grinned. "I've always wanted to try that with you."

She paused and thought about it, looking slightly stunned; and then a wide grin of her own formed. "I would say that counts as sappier."

Slipping his fingers back in between hers, he gave her a nod. "See? I'm a fast learner."


End file.
